Interview with Mark Bowden, author of ‘The Finish’

The Chronicle’s Books section today launches Bookmarks, which will feature author interviews, highlight literary events and explore publishing trends. The first post is an interview with Mark Bowden, whose book “The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden,” is now out in paperback from Grove Press.

In tight, urgent prose honed during his many years as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer — and as the author of 10 books, including “Black Hawk Down” — Bowden not only lays out the details of one of the biggest manhunts in history but also charts Barack Obama’s changing views on how best to pursue bin Laden.

The interview was conducted by email.

Q: The operation to kill Osama bin Laden was a tremendous military success, but as you explain, a lot of credit should also go to “bureaucracy’s unique talent for obduracy,” for amassing intelligence that led to his whereabouts. Did you imagine it’d be only a matter of time before he was found?A: One of my friends pointed out to me, after bin Laden was killed, that I was the only one he knew who never wavered in the conviction that it would happen. Yes, I always believed it was only a matter of time, so long as illness or accident didn’t kill him first. I believed it precisely because I have some idea of how vast and how smart was the effort against him, and how unflagging it would be. Bureaucracy doesn’t tire out. For a good illustration of the same point, check out “Killing Pablo.” Escobar would still probably be alive, well, and very rich if he hadn’t gone to war against the state of Colombia (and its U.S. ally). That’s like the old saw about fighting City Hall multiplied exponentially.

Q: You tried to work with one of the Navy SEALs who was in the raid, but he ended up writing his own book, “No Easy Day,” which came out not long before yours. What did you make of his book?A: It is a good story about what it was like to be on the front lines of the wars we have been fighting for more than a decade, and its final chapter is the only first hand account (when it was published) by a SEAL who was on the final raid. So anyone interested in the story should read it.

Q: Did the SEAL ever explain his pen name, “Mark Owen,” which is remarkably similar to yours?

A: No, but I think it is one of those things that does not require explanation.

Q: Bin Laden was convinced that if Vice President Biden became president, the country would be led into a crisis because “Biden is totally unprepared for that post.” Was it shocking for you to find out just how bizarre his thinking was?

A: Not at all, although I confess that I found that political insight particularly hilarious. One of the things you learn when you travel and work overseas is that folks from other countries, while they generally know a little bit more about us than we know about them, really know very little about us. Like most people, ignorance is no bar to strong opinion. Whether or not you like Joe Biden, he has served at the highest levels of government for longer than most Americans have been alive. By most measures, he’s one helluva lot more thoroughly prepared for the presidency than Barack Obama was.

Q: The prominent CIA roles in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Homeland” are played by women. You write that a fair number of CIA analysts are in fact women. This isn’t simply because the CIA is trying to achieve gender parity. What’s also behind it?

A: I think it is primarily because the CIA has been trying to achieve gender parity, although there were some at the agency, as I document in “The Finish,” who felt that women made particularly good analysts. Others believed the opposite, that their judgment tended to be skewed by their emotions. One of the most common forms of human folly is the effort to ascribe common traits to literally billions of people, in this case women.

Q: Two deadly disasters — Delta Force in Iran in 1979 and the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 — have weighed on leaders considering special operations raids. What effect will the Abbottabad raid have on future decisionmaking?

A: It will certainly give our leaders greater confidence in the talents of our special ops units. The wrong lesson to draw is that because this mission went so smoothly, it was easy. It wasn’t. It was very difficult and extremely high-risk, as I have tried to show in the book.

Q: You outline a shift in Barack Obama’s philosophy regarding the use of force, from restraint to realpolitik. Is this simply a reflection of running for and being president?

A: I believe that it resulted from Obama having to accept responsibility, as opposed to voicing political opinions. I don’t fault him for this. A lesser man would cling to his opinions despite everything. It’s one thing to be opposed to the use of force; it’s another to swear an oath to “protect and defend.” Obama has had to wrestle with this in a much more direct way than most of us ever will. His Nobel acceptance speech in particular described very powerfully where that struggle has led him, to a profound respect for the necessity of force, and at the same time a real appreciation for its dangers.

Q: When intelligence officers spotted a man in the Pakistani compound whom they suspected was bin Laden, they called him “the Pacer,” because of his daily walks. The name seems fitting, as bin Laden was in essence a prisoner in the place, pacing back and forth. Does one ever get the sense from bin Laden’s writings that he suspected the end was near for him?

A: I didn’t see any evidence of it. If anything, he believed himself as master of staying hidden. In his final letters he is lecturing his minions to follow his example to avoid being detected by the Americans, and outlining very precise instructions for doing so. That said, his need to stay hidden did, in effect, imprison him. He certainly knew that if he showed his face, in the neighborhood outside his compound or anywhere in the world, he would be arrested or killed. That says a lot about how popular he and his message were in the Muslim world.